ST Rey's Parents

Deciding to do that was a fundamental error. Star Wars is a SAGA. That means it is fundamentally about history. Making a saga story that has a theme about destroying the past? That's... just dumb. What Rian Johnson did with that theme is he made "The Last Jedi" literally a saga that hates it's own history and destroys the series past. That was always going to enrage people.

 

This is a deliberate plan by Disney and I am okay with it. I just want it done well.

As I said in another thread, for a thousand generations Jedi came from nobody. Families of all classes and species gave their children to the Jedi to be trained. So, I am cool with Rey not having a special lineage.

 

But the issue is that there's no more arc for IX. Kylo's a bumbling idiot, Rey knows the truth she wants and has already punked Kylo in battle. What else is there except to take what we know about the characters and go deeper?

That's kind of why I think a very interesting direction would be this:
* Kylo wants an apprentice and to wipe out all others so he goes on a hunt for "forcies" (my word for Force sensitive kids)
*Rey feels this and tries to save them knowing that she herself lost her family or were thrown out
*Kylo doesn't kill them but rather enslaves them, tries to break them down for being nothing, and tries to tell them they can be something if they join him
*Kylo becomes Ramses and Rey becomes the Moses and Luke kind of becomes her "God" (I know-gotta watch it with that one)

 

You have missed the point of the film.

Kylo wants to destroy the past.

Luke thinks the past holds nothing for the future.

Both men are wrong.

One of the lessons of the film is about not letting the mistakes of the past define you, nor to let an obsession with the past stop you living in the moment, being blind to the potential of the future.

Yes, it’s using this as a meta comment on the saga, but it’s also saying that the essence of the past can be reborn, and indeed must be reborn for life and hope to thrive.

If you think the film is saying films one to seven were all for nothing and should be thrown on the scrap heap, you are misunderstanding the film.

Luke wants to end the Jedi at the start - he realises he is wrong at the end and sacrifices himself so they can be reborn. The villain is the man who thinks it all needs to be torn down. He is also wrong.

 

TLJ left us with:

A descimated Resistance and Republic and a strong First Order lead by...
A powerful, but still conflicted, Skywalker, who has a connection with...
A powerful, resolved, light sider who is fully committed to rebuilding said...
Decimated Resistance, a movement that's made more of hope than substance.

Luke literally laid out the plot of IX.

The war has just begun.
The Jedi are not dead.

We're left with a Rey-like boy as the final shot.

Hope. Danger. Complex relationships. Force expansion. WAR.

If you honestly think there's nothing left to tell in IX, I think you might have not seen VIII.

 

I don't see Kylo as a bumbling idiot at all. I see him as a deeply unstable psychotic mad king. There is plenty of drama and tension in that.

When we say there is no more arc for IX, let's be honest - we mean we don't know what the clear and obvious arcs are.

Part of that is due to the loss of Carrie. If she was still with us we would know that the Leia / Kylo arc would play a major role in the film.

Beyond that we have Rey potentially leading new Jedi... Potentially the KoR... Kylo trying to destroy it all... The spark becoming the flame that will burn the FO down, and hopefully, hopefully Luke Skywalker guiding Rey and way more interestingly - haunting mad king Kylo.

I think the potential there is Shakespearean. We just can't pin down where exactly it's going. For me, that's a good thing, though at first I did wonder if they had burned through too much too soon. Now I just think, these guys know what they're doing. They know they have to come up with compelling arcs and a story to round off the ST. Us not knowing what that involves yet is really not an issue we need to worry about.

 

I am pretty shocked at how many fans have been swerved on this. To me, it is so painfully obvious that Kylo is lying to her, specifically manipulating her into thinking he is the only one who cares about her.

People must utterly ignore Rian Johnson's comments -- he clearly has to say something when asked about not revealing her lineage. It does not mean, in any way, that is how it will play out 9. I think people really need to wait for IX to argue this one.

 

Better to manipulate the truth I think. I don't think it's swerve. I think anyone doubling down on the denial is in for more disappointment in 2 years time.

EDIT - re Destroying the past. Here is Rian's own take on it in the film - which makes it clear that though the negative statement is raised, ultimately it's not the positive message one should take away.

In the film, Kylo advises Rey to “kill the past.” It seems like your movie is kind of also kind of representative of that. Like for Star Wars, to move on to the future of the franchise, you kind of have to let go of…
Well, it’s an interesting aspect of it. It’s an interesting theme. And it’s for me the balance was…Kylo is saying that, and interestingly to me, Luke is kind of saying his own version of that as well. And it’s really Rey who is the balance and Rey is where my heart lies in terms of that theme and where we end up at the end of the movie. Because I do believe that I understand the kind of that fiery instinct of burn down the past, cut off from tradition, forge forward in your life. Don’t look back. Every one of us has had the example in our life where we’ve felt that or acted that out in some way.
I also think if you think you’re leaving the past behind or cutting it off, you’re fooling yourself. The real way to move forward is by building on the… is by realizing what you take and what you leave from the past, not holding onto it too closely. Like the lesson of Luke and the tree with Yoda. But building off of what it’s worth and moving forward from there, which is what Rey lands on. And that ultimately is where my heart’s at. […] Hopefully, it still feels like a Star Wars movie and pays some things off, but also does some things that are unexpected and takes us some new places.

 

Here's the deal. I saw Empire in the theaters when I was nine. I spent three years absolutely convinced that Vader was lying to Luke, that he was manipulating him and trying to find a weakness, to give him something he craved--a father.

But you know what? He was telling the truth.

Some times the stark and painful truth can be the most hurtful thing. And it can also set one free.

Sorry everyone's headcanon's were popped (mine was she came from dark sided parents.)

It is what it is. She's special because she's Rey. No more, no less.

 

Again, this is why I say that SW is full of half truths. For now we have to assume that Rey truly is a "nobody" but that doesn't mean things have to be exactly the way Kylo says it. Everyone is somebody and Rey's use of the word "nobodies" seemed to have been taken straight for the infamous Rey Parentage thread. It's as if Rian was reading US.

Kylo looking down on desert "paupers" and calling them drunkers who sold Rey could be his way of saying he's better than those people. BUT remember that his grandfather, the one he wants so much to emulate, comes from that existence and had a mother who loved him very much.

So Rey says that her parents were "nobodies" but it's Kylo who says they were junkers who sold her for booze and are buries in pauper graves. Rey never said that, Kylo did. She just said "nobodies". Ironic if/when Kylo learns that Anakin was in the same situation and Rey learns that her parents, while paupers, DID love her and wanted to protect her. The irony and the "certain point of view" has to come in at some point.

Kylo rejected his own family. Rey is told to do the same. Wonder how that turns out?

Btw-thanks to the admins for making the boards faster today!

 

See I don't buy this, "he's telling the truth" situation. We know that RJ has said to Kylo he's telling the truth. We also know Snoke created the Bond, and given what Andy said, Snoke is supposed to be more powerful a being. So to Kylo he's telling the truth, because of what he sees, or is made to see, thus he believes it to be true. IF Rey truly believed him, she would have taken his hand because what did she have to lose at that point. But she didn't. Not only because she still had leia, Finn, Luke, Poe and BB8 to come back to, but also because she didn't totally believe him.

Here's the thing to me, what reason would he have to tell her the truth? He's angry at her at that point, she's rejecting him. He's saying this out of spite and venom. The problem here is that we're believing the guy that basically lied to his dad before he killed him. Kind of hard to trust anything that came out of his mouth. The difference with Vader was that Vader had no reason to lie to Luke. Ben has every reason to lie to Rey because of the fact that he is more emotional then Vader. Vader only became emotional when he was confronted with the death of his son. Before that, he was more then willing to kill him and manipulate Leia in the future.

The other thing that no one seems to be taking into account is the place she was in. Rey even said it was like an out of body experience. The Lake she fell into is something from the dark side and it's not going to be telling her the truth. The Mirror scene started off by showing her two people then they merged into one. The fact that there were two clearly indicates that at some point her parents were around. Now, if that Mirror is what I think it is, and it's based on the Mirror of Remembrance, then you have a case where that Mirror only shows you the dead. Given that it's more a dark side thing now, it's not going to be honest with the person. It's going to show them things that will be their fears. Rey's worst fear is that she's a nobody.

But there in lies the issue here. Was the Mirror lying to her too?

There's only a few options here that I can think of.

1. She's truly a no one that no one cares about. Or that only a small subset of people care about, which I don't buy at all.

2. She's the kid of some random people that left her behind to keep her safe from something and they truly loved her.

3. She's a Skywalker since Luke cut himself off and may not have known that someone had a kid with him.

4. She's a force Baby ala Anakin.

5. She's actually a clone or an experiment using the DNA from either Anakin (since the FO would still have Vader's blood), or Luke (again due to them getting the DNA at some point.

6. Weird one would be she's Ezra's kid, connecting them to Rebels somehow.

7. She's a descendant of Obi Wan's through his youth and is his grand child.

8. She's Poe's sister due to his mother being pregenent when she vanished.

9. She's the child of someone earlier trained by Luke.

I really don't think LF would get rid of the Skywalkers, namely because of their connection to the series and people highly associate them with the series. Anyone can be a Jedi sure, just like Anyone can be Batman. But the difference here is that this is their story, much like the Joestars in JoJo's Bizarre adventure. They were the main for a long time and even with the new stories being told, we know there's a connection to them. The same can be seen here, the Skywalkers are our gateway into the world.

 

I pray to god that this thread doesn't go too far into the double digits. Rey's parents are a couple of nameless, faceless dead losers. Accept it.

 

No matter what JJ decides, Rey is a nobody in RJ's film. It's actually vital to Rey's journey in this film, and an overall theme, one that threads between the stories of Rose, Finn, Poe and is capped off by the closing scene with the stable boy.

I also wouldn't be sitting around, holding my breath for two years in the hopes that JJ will "fix" this. RJ said they agreed, independently, on who she was.

Which, we now know, is nobody special, at least lineage wise.

 

Even if this ends up not being the case, I'm pretty certain they won't be Skywalkers or Solos. How would that even work now?

Please someone, tell me a theory that makes Rey Solo not ludicrous at this stage (don't).

Either way, I agree. It's wise to accept the truth now. If it ends up not being the truth, it'll be a surprise.

Post ESB there were some people convinced Vader was lying too. That didn't work out too well.

We know JJ had come to the same conclusion as RJ. We know from JJ's Blu Ray comments that he seems to still be on that page.

Kylo has never met Rey before TFA. Leia and Rey have never met. They played fair in the film and they played fair with their comments for the most part.

Don't do this to yourselves (or the rest of us!) again!

 

jedijax

I like your theory but the problem is this. Rey already knows who were parents were. The whole elaborate “I am classified” secret background was all a lie. I would argue it was a useful lie in a way as it kept her going while on Jakku but also paralyzed her from not leaving. Kylo able to read her mind knew this and call her out on it which sent her in a fist of rage. There is no way to really undo that unless JJ wants to really throw out TLJ. Rey’s parents are nothing but junkies buried in the sands of Jakku which she knew the whole time and her marking down days via stick into the side of a walker was just her lying to herself to perhaps keep her sane. It’s like Misery if you ever saw that when Paul Sheldon tried to gloss over Misery’s fate in the last book but Annie says no and makes him rework the whole beginning. She is 100% Rey Dirt complete with redneck parents wearing “Make the Galaxy Great Again” hats.

That is where JJ needs to pick it up yet. Could he throw a bit of legacy on there and make her a Kenobi or something like that? Perhaps but even though I always said I wanted Rey Kenobi most of all (and have the Kenobi vs Skywalker battle again except this time the Kenobi is the one that can redeem the Skywalker’s soul as the family story is finished) but even that feel force at this point. The only way to really go forward is to actually push it even more. Like i said earlier in the thread, if Rey isn’t going to struggle physically in the force (its’ evident now she won’t) then struggle has to be emotionally. Her parents being junkies that left her abandoned and her simply being a “Nobody” just like Kylo said is what she struggles to overcome and leads to some failures. They can play up to the fact that Kylo knows the truth about her (the only one that really does as she played up “I am waiting for my family” routine to a tee with everyone else) and that just makes her even more mad at him which we know is the path to the dark side blah blah you know the rest.

But my guess? They leave this entire plot line buried in the sands of Jakku. Really no reason to explore it if the whole point now is these are standalone movies that really do not flow together. She is Rey Dirt and had been lying about her “family coming back for her” this whole time. The end.

Satipo

So now he is King Joffrey not as cool? Shame. I rather have him just be some sort of just evil dude with no explanation needed. What I really love to see (and still set up for it) is what I said from the beginning. Have Kylo be some sort of anti-hero (his blood line works perfectly for it) who plays both sides and really the only team he is on is Team Kylo. I know that is a bit Loki like but hey these are the Marvel versions of Star Wars so I am more then okay with it. And what would been really cool is if you had a civil war within the FO between Kylo and General Hux. They literally had the perfect moment to do it once Snoke was sliced in half and Hux saw the damage. He could either defied Kylo more saying the First Order only follows Supreme Leader Snoke and you are not his rightful heir or really been something, had he told Kylo off saying “you evil force users are useless as leaders and always get killed” and we saw Kylo vs Hux for control of the FO which could bled right into the Episode IX with each of them having groups that were loyal to them. This would allow the Resistance to build back up it’s fighting force and even play each other against one another (maybe that could lead to tensions between Rey and everyone as she wants to help Kylo knowing there is some good left in him while the others lead by Finn want him dead and buried first before they deal with Hux). Could been really something different and special. Instead they Colonel Klink Hux for humor reasons and he is about as useful as Colonel Sanders in Spaceballs. Minus the actual laughs of course.

Again shame. Only good part is JJ can do whatever he wants now that the entire thing is stand alone movies that are loosely tied together in the most extreme ways. I have a lot of faith JJ can deliver something fun to watch even if it’s not nearly remotely close to what it could been which is kinda the theme of this entire ST for me even if Episode IX is really good.

The Regular Mustache

The very last moment of TLJ tells you that this not happening. Disney never liked the Episode format from Day 1 (cannot pump out as many movies doing that which of courses means less characters IE less merchandise to peddle and less characters for kiddies to visit at the theme parks etc) and frankly is so excited to get rid of it, it really did not even wait to Episode IX to do it. It really came to an end about half way through TLJ which while I am sad to see the Episodes (which really is the Skywalker saga) end I fully agree with you that they just cannot keep doing Skywalker based films forever and having it bookend with three generations (a father-son/daughter and now grandson) is a good way to do it. Just wish they would wait to the end of Episode IX to actually get rid of it as really Episode IX now feels like an epilogue to the Skywalker story then it does the conclusion of it. I also should point out that these are not the reasons I did not like TLJ. Yes it was a bit disappointing but it isn’t the major problems with the film. Not by a long shot.

 

But if he cast someone who couldn't pass for a Skywalker child the way Daisy does, we could have avoided all the pointless debates.

Two years of pointless debates...

 

They weren't pointless though. It's a twist. They want that to be the subversion. It wasn't chosen to be so for shock factor, but once they decided that was the hardest answer for the character, you have to commit to the twist. And it worked in terms of being a surprise. It was a shock, but one that (to me) made sense in terms of the plot and for the character. Had they let the Rey Related fans down gently that would have been deflated. You can’t say “if the answer to the mystery isn’t what I think it should be then they should get the answer out there early and not even have a mystery”.

 

Rey's parents may be nobodies, but so were Anakin's - yet he was the Chosen One. For now I'm sticking with the theory that Rey is the reincarnation of Anakin, she's just waaaay too powerful, unless you ignore the OT and PT, which you can do, but than why's The Last Jedi "Episode 8"?

The problem is that I don't really care anymore. The only interesting character is Kylo Ren.

 

I'd like to note that JJ's slip of the tongue, that Rey's parents weren't in his film, was dead on.

He had to backtrack, obviously, but it's crystal clear now that his initial blurt was the truth.

 

Speak for yourself please

 

I am. I always said that fans couldn’t act like the only acceptable answer to the mystery was “Rey Related” and that still stands. Otherwise we’re back in tantrum territory.


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Plenty of people speculated that she was a nobody. They were largely laughed at for missing the clues, of course, but they were right there.

It was a mystery. All mysteries end with 9 out of 10 people being wrong.

 

Yes, we all knew not everyone could be right. Had she been a Skywalker or Solo no one who was wrong would have been legit in complaining that the speculation was pointless.


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I'm not saying JJ won't expound on it, but TLJ already tells us why Rey is so powerful.

Because she's the Force's answer to Kylo.

So the question would be, why is Kylo so powerful? Will JJ explain that, or just fall back on "cuz he's a Skywalker"?

 

Ha. That's the truth. Also when I hear that JJ and RJ had both come to the same conclusion that Rey would be a rando part of me wishes that JJ did one last rewrite of TFA to make it crystal clear that Rey wasn't related to anybody in the OT but I imagine that by the time RJ came on board it was too late to make changes to TFA. So...basically JJ kinda made Rey's parentage a big "top secret" mystery by accident. .Rey's parentage was a mystery because JJ was trying to cover all the bases even though ultimately he didn't need to do that.

That's the real joke. We're supposed to think that it was cool that Disney/Lucasfilm didn't dictate to the writers who Rey's parents would be however if Disney had dictated who her parents would be we could've avoided this big pointless mystery in the first place.

That said by creating this mystery it left me to daydream that Rey's parents could be good people like Luke, or Han and Leia and my speculation sorta mirrors Rey's own wishes/delusions that her parents were actually good people that would come back for her and love her. Similarly my initial disappointment when finding out that Rey isn't Luke's kid echos Rey's heartbreak and disappointment when she finally admits to herself that her parents are losers. Rey wanted Han and Luke to be her dad just like I did so in that respect I was just as disappointed as Rey. Even though that's all a load of hooey that's how I'm going to help justify why they made Rey's parentage a mystery.